


Empowerment At Shinra Inc.

by purglepurglepurgle



Category: Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Gen, STEM lol, Satire, dark humour, faux corporate feminism, political fiction, unsubtle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:02:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23913508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purglepurglepurgle/pseuds/purglepurglepurgle
Summary: Women's representation at Shinra is in a bad way. Luckily, the President has hired a consultant...Not the subtlest thing I've ever written, but I had fun with it.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 23





	Empowerment At Shinra Inc.

"... So, Mr. President," said the consultant, opening her binder, "as you can see, women at Shinra are currently paid 50% less than men, even in the same roles. Moreover, there is only one woman employed for every nine men employed-- this is averaged over the entire organisation; we find a better balance in the lower-paid roles, including temporary and part-time staff-- but the number of women declines sharply as we move up through the business. In the most important, decision-making and well-compensated roles, women are almost nowhere to be seen. So we have both a pay gap and a lack of representation."

President Shinra rested his chin on his hand. "Ah, yes, I see the problem."

The consultant smiled. This was what made her job worthwhile.

"We're losing money," the President continued. "Women cost less than men, but we're hiring fewer of them. If we can hire a woman to do the same job for half the cost, why aren't we getting them instead?"

"Um--"

"Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Yes... the Board alone... that's millions in savings... and Engineering is a huge drain-- no time to waste! Organise some outreach!" He turned to his Head of Marketing, expression dangerous. "And why haven't we done this sooner?"

"Well, er, so, what we've found, is..." The Head of marketing gulped. "Er, so, women don't apply for the jobs. Th-there's a pipeline problem..."

"So fix it." The President tapped some soot off the end of his cigar. "We need to stress to the ladies that we think they can be just as capable of doing the work. And I _do_ believe that; I'm no sexist, I assure you."

Three days later, the advertising copy was up:

_"At Shinra, we do things differently. We see the opportunity in diversity. So, this spring, Shinra is sponsoring BabesInTech, Midgar's biggest conference helping girls find their way into STEM-- because Shinra knows you're not just a pretty face. Come to Shinra, and we'll help you unlock your true potential, whether that's making cars, guns-- or a little bit of both!_

_Shinra Inc.: We're Not Like Those Other Companies (TM)"_

**Author's Note:**

> I'm a bit late, but -- for International Women's Day, McDonald's likes to flip their logo so the 'm' becomes a 'w'. idk if humanity can handle this much empowerment.
> 
> (And this still gets me-- if you search 'International Women's Day', the first result (internationalwomensday.com) is a site that tries to look like the hub for some form of nonprofit, but is actually run by a marketing firm ('Aurora Ventures'), that specialises in depicting their client companies as progressive. Most of their copy is about how great their client, Amazon, is.
> 
> They also sell balloons.)


End file.
